Pipe Dream
by Evex
Summary: Fantasies are glorious, but it is the reality of a moment which can keep you up at night, clutching your sheets and breathing hard.
1. The Fantasy

**Author's Note:** Spoilers for Hunting and No Reason ahead. Enjoy!

The memory of her touch sizzled on his skin, burning its way deep into the folds of his psyche, stinging when he moved and snapping him back to that moment so long ago just as he thought he was moving on.

He had never been pushed against a wall like that before; cornered, captured, unable to run or even think before her lips closed over his slowly and with a sensuality he had never thought she could exude. She had been so uninhibited, so wild and untamed. Her kiss had been hot and it stimulated him from head to toe and everywhere in between. His skin had tingled as she pressed her body close to his, melting with him against the wall. He had wanted to fight; he knew that what he was doing was desperately, unforgivably wrong, but even as he tried to push her away his skin screamed out, begging for more of her. The door was close and he could easily overpower her, but in the fog of fire and lips and skin he knew he couldn't have run if he'd wanted to.

He'd fled from her apartment when it was over. He had been afraid, fearful of facing her as she fell from her high and floated halfway between passion and purgatory as the reality of what she had done came racing toward her. He had known she would be filled with resentment; toward herself mostly, but directed at him; and he hadn't wanted the overwhelming feeling that he had taken advantage of her to be the last thing he felt that night. They could both face each other in the morning, he'd thought, when he could think things through and present himself to her as if she had not just done exactly what every man who looked at her dreamed she would.

There had been others since her; flirtations and flings which meant nothing in hindsight though at the time he'd tried to believe each woman could be his new obsession. Chase and Cameron had agreed that their one night would be the only night and it was the right decision to make. They were colleagues, first and foremost, in a department where the slightest indiscretion was fodder for ridicule, and attempting to have a relationship under the watchful eye of Dr. House was akin to trying to run an ice cream stand on the face of an active volcano: it just didn't make any sense. Attempting to hide it from him would prove just as fruitless. They hadn't even kept their last tryst under wraps for fifteen hours. And then there was the matter of House himself. Chase had always suspected that House's affections toward Cameron ran much deeper than simple tolerance or appreciation of the fact that she was, by definition, a beautiful woman. Chase often wondered if House's resentment towards him in recent years wasn't, on some level, in retaliation for the affair. To incur more of House's wrath by pursuing Cameron was, to say the least, not likely to be on Chase's list of resolutions any time soon. Though she would be worth it.

And then there was Cameron herself, who would have hated Chase for months had he not caught her in the locker room the next morning. She had felt like a fool, that much was clear, and wanted to present herself as if none of it affected her so as not to appear as a fool to the rest of the world. She had portrayed herself as so aloof, yet somehow simultaneously bitter, and Chase had done what he could to alleviate her nervousness by circumventing any awkwardness between them. He had salvaged their friendship, and their working relationship, by absolving her of her sins, and that was the best he could hope for.

But he still wanted to push her up against a wall sometimes; to trap her like she had trapped him and show her that not all passion came from a pill.

He would catch himself thinking of her and her touch, of her skin in the moonlight and the way his heart leaped and his stomach clenched when he had been with her. He would go for weeks at a time without falling victim to the memory of her but these respite periods were even worse than when he thought of her every day, for they would break with vivid ferociousness and he would find himself waking in the middle of the night sticky and drenched with sweat, with no hope of sleep and wanting nothing but to be back at the door of her apartment, feeling the world spin as she descended upon him.

Sometimes he caught himself thinking of her during the day, in the midst of a differential when her skin would flush with frustration as she argued with Foreman or House, or when she leaned over a microscope with that furrowed face of focus which shut out the rest of the world to her. He would shake his head and sigh, sometimes disappearing into the other room until that dry, parched feeling in his throat would slip away.

If he could find any consolation, it was in the fact that she clearly had no idea what moments he was reliving in his head. She seemed to have discovered new outlets for her frustrations, and new ways to experience life without allowing it to pass her by. Since the shooting she had changed; she appeared to have grown into the woman she had wanted to be when she sprang on him. Life was funny that way. You could chase a life all you wanted, but in the end, it happened when it felt good and ready.

Such was Chase's philosophy regarding Cameron. He was not a hopeless romantic caught up in her inherent soul or anything quite so trivial. He could not even claim to be in love with her. He wanted her, plain and simple, wanted her in a way he wanted nothing else. But he would not create a world in which she wanted him in return. If it was meant to be, it would happen. It certainly had before.

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To be continued ...


	2. Trapped

When Chase looked at the things which were certain regarding his chosen profession, he wanted to cringe. Nobody in the scope of his education had pointed out to him that much of being a doctor had to do with guesswork and argumentation, not data and the inherent respect afforded a man with the word "doctor" before his name. Medicine was a balance of detective work, science and, apparently, breaking and entering.

Chase had become quite stealthy at removing patients' keys from their personal belongings, sometimes slipping them straight out of spouse's pockets while they exchanged strained salutations. He had learned the art of picking pockets as a young boy lifting money from his father's wallet, when the senior Chase was around long enough for his wallet to be left unattended, that was. Keys were harder to take than money; they were clumsier and made more noise, but Chase had a doctor's precise hands. He had learned quickly, especially after his gold card had nearly snapped in half after going up against an exceptionally stubborn dead bolt, how to lift even an entire ring of keys while the patients remained unsuspicious. Occasionally he simply asked patients for their key but, of course, the ones whose environments were making them sick tended to reject the idea of strange doctors with knowledge of all things chemical and direct lines to both the Centers for Disease Control and the health department traipsing around their homes unsupervised.

Such was the case with the overly surly man with a notebook full of disturbing anarchic writings whose persistent cough, nosebleeds, headaches, and diarrhea House suspected were caused by an illegal toxin being stored in the home. The man protested, declaring he kept nothing illegal on his property, and Chase almost chuckled as he lifted the man's key from his keychain, a skull and crossbones. The more a patient protested, the more often House was right. Chase worried for a moment that the house might be filled with murderous fumes and that he might keel over within moments of entering but his fears dissipated quickly. Medical records showed he had been sick for months, with no apparent life-threatening symptoms. Chances were, Chase would be just fine. He would get in, get out, and get on with his life as usual.

"Take Cameron with you," House growled. "I need Foreman to prove he's a neurologist by running some of those brain tests I hear he knows how to do."

House was in one of his bossy, unforgiving moods, the kind where he barked orders without humor or even interest and during which Chase almost always had to resist the urge to salute and say, "Yes, drill sergeant." That was the other certainty of the medical profession, moody supervisors. That, at least, was one he had been warned of in medical school.

"He's just reserving himself," Cameron said as Chase inserted the key in the patient's front door. "He looks like he's in pain today, and you know it's hard for him to focus when he's in pain."

"He's not PMSing," Chase quipped, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Cameron's incessant defense of the man who so often treated them as cattle without abandon. The deadbolt clicked and he swung the front door open. "He's just a grouch."

Chase winced as he tentatively entered the front entryway of the house, then relaxed as he looked around the tiny structure. If they'd expected the house to be a dark, decrepit centerfold for Satanic Weekly magazine, they were wrong. It was a bachelor pad, sparsely decorated, but Chase could not see anything overtly out of the ordinary. A few beers littered the coffee table in the living room, resting on top of a stack of porn magazines. Chase chuckled, then cast a wayward glance at Cameron to gauge her reaction. She gave none, but headed for the kitchen, passing a large gun safe in the front hallway as she did.

"That's comforting," she nodded towards the gun safe. "The man could be a psychotic maniac intent on taking out half of New Jersey with a homemade chemical weapon, but at least he keeps his guns locked up."

"It's probably just a good thing he doesn't have kids," Chase said, marveling at the safe which came up to his own shoulder. "This thing is a juvenile deathtrap."

He tried the handle of the safe and found it unlocked. The heavy safe door swung open, revealing an empty box of cold green metal.

"Nothing in here," Chase called, running a cotton swab over the inside of the safe to check for residues, just in case. "I'll check the bathroom."

The bathroom of the ordinary bachelor was a dangerous thing by nature. Men, Chase knew, were often lax about their cleaning, especially the men who ended up patients of the diagnostics department at PPTH. He snapped on his latex gloves before entering, cautious of what he might find. He was surprised, however, to find the bathroom spotless. The medicine cabinet was stocked with over-the-counter acetaminophen and antihistamines, in addition to the medication prescribed by other physicians for the ailments which had brought him to Princeton-Plainsboro. It seemed the only anger the man had was contained in his notebook.

Still, Chase had learned not to fall for the blatantly obvious. Secrets which were meant to be kept were never presented at face value. If a man truly had something to hide, only the most scrutinizing eye would be able to identify it.

Cameron's heels clicked across the house to the bedroom where Chase found her on the floor, halfway underneath the unmade bed with only her legs sticking out from beneath the worn mattress. The bedroom was the only room out of order, Chase noted, indicating the patient probably spent most of his time there.

"What are you doing?" Chase inquired.

"If he's as paranoid as House thinks," Cameron grunted, wiggling her way out from under the bed, "something is probably hidden in this room so it can be easily accessible to him at all times. And anyone knows the best place to hide incriminating evidence is under the mattress."

Chase wasn't sure if she was joking or not, so he watched her fling the comforter off the bed and search the mattress in silence.

Finding nothing, she moved on to the closet which was packed so full of clothes Cameron had to use her entire body weight to shove them aside.

"You know, I think this guy is a fraud," she noted. "Nobody who is as angry with capitalism as he claims to be owns this many outfits. He owns more clothes than I do."

Outside, Chase heard the squeak of brakes and the slamming of several car doors. He moved to the bedroom windows and pulled the mini-blinds apart gently.

"Cameron," he gulped, "I think we've got a problem."

Cameron joined him at the window and peered out, then swore.

Two police cars lined the street in front of the house, parked behind the imitation police car belonging to the Cage Silent Alarm home security company. Two burly police officers and one just-as-muscle-laden security guard stared up at the house, unclipping their gun holsters.

"It's okay, we're okay," Chase babbled. "We'll just explain to them who we are and where we're from and we'll be fine. We have a key."

"Sure, except that you stole the key from a man in a hospital bed and we have no authorization to be here," Cameron's voice was tinged with panic, yet somehow she managed not to be at a loss for words, "and as much as we like to ignore it, unauthorized entrance is trespassing and therefore a crime, not to mention something we could be personally sued over."

The officers moved closer to the house and Chase stepped back from the windows, letting the mini-blinds drop shut lest the two doctors be seen.

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

"Hide," Cameron demanded, leaping towards the open closet and pulling Chase in with her. She jerked the closet door shut, plunging them both into darkness. She pushed her way to the back of the closet and yanked on the sleeve of Chase's jacket, beckoning her to join him.

"What if they open the door and find us in here?" Chase whispered. His voice hissed in the darkness and was muffled by the collection of suit jackets Cameron was rearranging in an attempt to cover them.

"Then we're screwed," she replied, grunting with the effort it took to move the loaded hangers. "Did you lock the front door?"  
"Yeah," Chase said, watching the cracks of light which filtered in from the bedroom and cast the inside of the closet with dim, gentle light. Chase's eyes were adjusting to the light, and he watched as pieces of lint floated on the yellow afternoon sunlight, drifting in and out of the closet with ease. "How much of a mess did you make in the kitchen?"

"I've done this before," Cameron reminded him. "I know how to clean up."

Heavy booted footsteps clunked in the front hallway, and Chase placed a finger on his lips to shush her.

"Cage Security," a booming but nervous voice resonated through the house. Cameron went completely still and inside the closet silence loomed large and deafening. "Mr. Sweeney? Cage Security."

"Police," a stronger voice announced its presence. "You have tripped a silent alarm. Show yourself now before I have to find you."

The boots began to clunk through the house, no doubt preceded by the dull gray metal of a service weapon and the flash of a silver badge. Chase shrunk against the back wall of the closet, trying to make himself as tiny and as insignificant as possible, hoping to border on the invisible. With the tiny slivers of sunlight Chase could see that although the closet was shallow it was long, extending beyond the edges of the closet door. Stepping silently over shoes and around a collection of shirts he could identify as hideous even in the dark, Chase crept towards the far corner of the closet. Cameron stood opposite the closet door, focused on the sound of the boot steps and ignorant to Chase's movements. Chase snaked his arm out from behind the row of Hawaiian shirts which now concealed him and grasped her wrist firmly, tugging her towards him. She slithered into the corner beside him, pulling the shirts closed around them. They both hoped, silently, that if the closet door opened they would be hidden enough from view.

Chase pulled Cameron tightly against him, turning so she was concealed entirely by his body, nestled in the corner of the closet. He reached his arms up and placed his elbows on either side of her head, resting his palms flat against the cool closet walls. He noted with irony that this was the same position he would stand in when the police would arrest them.

He wondered if House would come bail them out of jail. He would bail Cameron out, that was almost certain. Chase would probably be left to stew for a day or so.

Cameron's breath was stilted and shallow, and came in ragged bursts against Chase's cheek. He leaned closer to her, so close his lips brushed the edge of her ear, and whispered, "Breathe normally," just as he realized he was holding back himself.

She took a deep breath and exhaled, sending a warm gust past his ear and across the collar of his shirt. He shivered in spite of himself. It was hardly the time for it, but Chase was suddenly very aware that he had Cameron, warm and trembling to the touch, trapped beneath him, up against a wall, only centimeters from his skin.

Her heart was thumping so loudly he could hear it with his naked ears. She heard the muffled thuds of her heartbeat and crossed her arms over her chest in an irrational attempt to shield the sound from the officers, as if they could hear it through the closet walls and over their own footsteps. Her fingers brushed against Chase's shirt, leaving a burning trail in their wake. His pulse was racing as well, but now for a very different reason.

The footsteps echoed into the bedroom, and Chase stepped closer to the frozen Cameron, pressing his body against hers as a shadow fell across the closet door, plunging the entire contents of the closet into blackness. Cameron's hands flew back against the closet wall as she shrank even more into the corner, widening the tiny gap between them. She tilted her face down, almost burying her forehead against Chase's shoulder. Chase brought his arms closer together, almost clutching her head, as he shrank down over her, praying the shadows at the corner of the closet and the clothes hanging beside him would be enough to keep them hidden from view. They both held their breath again.

The closet door opened, flooding the closet with light, then shut just as quickly.

"Bedroom's clear!" the voice announced as the boots headed back toward the front hall.

In the closet, Chase and Cameron exhaled simultaneously. Cameron tilted her head up towards the ceiling, grinning with nervous laughter. Chase smiled into the curve of her shoulder, but stayed poised as he was. He took a deep, relieved breath and the scent of her, all Dove soap and mango shampoo, attacked his senses. He closed his eyes, afraid she would look at his face and see them roll into the back to his head with pleasure. It took every ounce of restraint he had not to clutch her hair in his fists and kiss her until her scent turned to the musky smell of lust.

"This guy's a quack," the quivering voice, the security guard, proclaimed. "We're out here at least once a month investigating his alarm and never finding anything. Came in here once and he'd set up booby traps to set off the alarm just to see if we were paying attention. Bet that's what happened this time."

A two-way radio squawked and one of the officers responded.

"Can never be too sure," another replied to the guard. "We'll check the perimeter of the house and the neighborhood just to be sure."

"I appreciate it," the guard said. "Sorry to bring you guys out here for nothing. With four beeps the silent security system was deactivated. "I'll stick around and reactivate that when you're done."

Cameron looked Chase in the eye, her stare acknowledging their predicament had not changed. He opened his eyes and gazed back at her, thinking of something else entirely.

He had vowed not to pursue her, and to allow life to take its course, to bring him back to her if it was meant to be. And here he was, right back with her, with two cops and a security guard ensuring they stayed fused together, unable to separate. If he'd been waiting for a sign this was, undeniably, it.

With a final deep, shaking breath, Chase took control of his moment.

He dropped his arms from the walls, landing one on her neck and bringing the other to rest on her hip. He remembered the curve of that hip, dancing and tantalizinghim as it led him to her room. Gooseflesh blanched against his fingers as her skin reacted to his touch. He could feel her pulse quicken and skitter all over the place. She knew what was coming. Her lips formed his name in silent questioning, but she did not try to pull away. He stroked his thumb against her throat, trying to reassure her. As he did, he realized that reassurance had never been part of his fantasy. She had never done anything to reassure him, she had just taken him, and that was exactly what he had wanted to do to her in return. Keeping the other hand on her hip he moved his arm back up to the wall to steady himself, leaned in, and kissed her before she could respond.

Turnabout was, it turned out, fair play.

He feared for a moment that this kiss would be different from the first one, and that all that had excited himthat night could have been just an effect of the drugs, thus absolving him of the idea there was any real attraction between them. For the first few seconds of the kiss he waited, clinging to the fantasy, as he kissed her startled, unresponsive lips.

Then, as if a spark had jolted her to life, she began to kiss him back. Her lips parted as her eyes slid closed, and she pulled him in as slowly and as tenderly as he had remembered. She was still unsure, still exploring, and he refused to press the issue with her, wanting to draw out the moment as long as he could.

When the pressure reached its breaking point, break it did. She pressed her lips a little harder against his and that was the only hint he required. He took her waist with both his arms, pulling her firmly against him, pressed her against the wall as hard as he could without crushing her, and kissed her until his own knees shook so much he was forced to release her and place his hands back on the wall to steady himself and keep from toppling over.

So heavy were they breathing that they scarcely heard the four beeps reinstate the security system and the front door slam.

It was the chatter of the officers returning to their cars outside the bedroom window and the subsequent scratch of tires against asphalt which shook them from their reverie. Chase stepped back from the wall almost immediately, conscious that his moment had passed.

"He reactivated the silent alarm," Chase said, his voice unnaturally loud and awkward after the silence of the events which had transpired.

Cameron nodded, mute. Chase stifled a grin. He'd had his revenge and silenced the unsilenceable Dr. Cameron. A banner day all around.

He noted, as an added benefit, that her lips were beginning to swell from the assault they had taken. Chase resolved to take his time returning to the hospital, lest House take notice.

"We have to leave," Chase said, filling in the logic which Cameron was clearly not ready to process. "Wherever that sensor is we're bound to trip it, and next time they won't be quite so lenient about the search."

"What'll we tell House?" Cameron asked, finding her voice again.

"The truth," Chase decided. At Cameron's panicked glance he added, "Well, not the whole truth, obviously."

Cameron smiled, but Chase turned too quickly to see it. He opened the closet door and hurried out, anxious to again outrun the awkwardness which would undoubtedly follow them for weeks.

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To be continued ...


	3. Reality Clash

House, it seemed, was feeling better.

"Lewis, Clark," he greeted the fellows as they entered the glass conference room. "Or is one of you Pocahontas? I can't decide. Discover anything fascinating?"

"Actually," Chase said with a sideways glance at Cameron, who had not spoken since the closet and avoided his gaze. "We ran into a bit of a problem."

House looked between the doctors expectantly. He lifted his hands, demanding further explanation. "Which is, what? House go ka-blooey before you got there?"

"No," Chase replied. "He had a silent alarm. Cops came within minutes. We had to hide in the closet so we wouldn't get busted."

"You hid in the closet?" House shouted. Chase winced. Either House was furious, and Chase was about to receive another diatribe regarding his own uselessness, or he was amused and would be making all sorts of "Chase coming out of the closet" jokes for months. Either way, Chase supposed he should leave that part out entirely. "Well, how very R Kelly of you. Could you two be any more clichéd? Why didn't you do something amazingly innovative like vault into the chimney or blend into the walls or, I don't know, tell the fuzz you're doctors trying to avert a national health crisis?"

"We did blend in with some very nice Hawaiian shirts," Chase attempted to retort.

"Avoiding litigation with a man who is so antagonistic and anarchic we suspect him of accidentally poisoning himself while trying to create a bigger weapon for terrorism sounded like a good idea," Cameron wryly added from the door. Chase glanced at her over his shoulder. She stood with her arms folded over her shirt, giving House one of her penetrating and unwavering stares of challenge.

House contemplated their excuses for a moment, then cocked his eyebrow and said, "Huh. Well, okay then."

"Okay?" Foreman repeated from his spot beside the table. "If I'd come back with nothing you would have berated me for ten minutes and then sent me back out, but they come back with nothing and that's okay?"

"Yup," House replied as he gathered his cane and a blank file folder and headed for the door with Foreman on his heels. "We'll just use this guy's paranoia to our own benefit."

As he passed Cameron, he paused. They locked eyes, and Cameron shifted a little under his stare.

"Besides," he said. "Seems to me these two came back with plenty."

Cameron blushed, dropping her head a little as House and Foreman exited into the hallway. As the door swung shut behind them she looked up at Chase with an air of near disgust, and turned to follow her colleagues.

"Cameron …" Chase started, but it was too late. She strode into the hallway and out of sight, and something about her walk told Chase that following her was not an option.

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To be continued ...


	4. Released

The problem with fantasies, Chase knew, was that nobody ever thought about what would happen after the fantasy was fulfilled. In all the time he had fantasized of kissing Cameron again, he had never stopped to wonder what her response would be. It had never occurred to him to wonder what she would say, or even assume she would be able to say anything at all. He had never imagined anything more than a moment after he kissed her, except to delve into a further fantasy of them in bed together, intertwined. Even those fantasies simply returned him to memories of the last time she kissed him, which did nothing but start the fantasy all over again.

As a result, he had no idea how to proceed. Sitting alone in his apartment, reliving the afternoon, Chase found himself at a loss. Part of him felt he should find Cameron and apologize to her, certain he had something to apologize for. He had assumed she would not protest his kiss, and she had not, outright. She had not seemed happy about it, either. She was just silent, and that distressed Chase more than he imagined anything she could have said would. Cameron was never silent, not when she had an opinion about something.

Therefore, Chase was forced to admit that perhaps Cameron had never thought about kissing him again, and had no strong opinions either way. He was surprised how much that hurt him, the idea that she might not care about him at all. He had never allowed himself to believe that his feelings for Cameron extended deeper than just the passion of that first drug-induced night. It never occurred to him that she had awoken something in him that night which he could not forget or repress.

He thought about calling her, but knew that if she was not willing to talk to him in person she was sure not to answer the phone. He thought about finding her and explaining himself to her in person, but worried that she might think he was there just to get her back into bed. He hadn't wanted to have sex with her, necessarily, when he pinned her against the wall in the closet; he had simply wanted to have that feeling back. That dizzying, exhilarating feeling of spontaneity and passion she had given him before. He had only wanted to kiss her, and had never thought of what would happen when the kiss broke.

He thought about doing nothing, just pretending he had never taken her off her guard in the first place, but that felt like the worst option of all. Cameron had consumed his thoughts more times than he cared to remember, but trying to forget about her would be impossible. He needed to face this, and so did she, but how to go about it was a mystery to him.

He stood and flipped open his cell phone, staring at the screen for a long moment before searching for her number. Her name, highlighted in blue, stared at him from the screen, challenging her to call him. He was not ready to face her in person, but knew that if he did not at least attempt a step towards a friendship, he could lose her entirely.

It seemed, suddenly, that the call button on the phone was the heaviest, most resistant thing he had ever encountered. He willed his thumb again and again to compress the button and begin a conversation, but his stubborn hand refused to respond to his commands. In his chest, his heart thumped as loudly as hers had in the closet, threatening to pound its way out from behind his ribcage entirely. He inhaled deeply and rested the phone against his forehead, chiding himself for his own weakness and immaturity. He had not been this nervous about calling a girl since he was a boy, summoning up all his courage to call the first girl he had ever thought was beautiful. She had turned him down. He had been disappointed, but survived. He hadn't fantasized about that girl for years, though, and certainly hadn't had her before.

With a surge of confidence and resentment towards his own thoughts, he pressed the button and brought his phone to his ear. He would get her voicemail, he was sure of that. He wouldn't actually have to talk to her. He would be able to leave a message. He would start the conversation, and she would come to him when she was ready.

In the hallway outside his door, a phone rang.

Chase turned and stared at the door, marveling at the coincidence. The phone rang again, quieter, and he realized with a flash that he recognized the ring. He'd heard it a hundred times, and the tension which gripped his chest at the sound reminded him that every time that ring sounded, bad news was to follow. Often the sound meant an insult from House was to follow, usually it meant test results were in and sometimes it meant someone had died.

It was Cameron's phone.

The ring sounded again, muffled and bordering on nonexistent as it moved farther down the hallway. He dashed for the door, phone still to his ear, and stepped into the hallway as Cameron's prerecorded voice indicated she had successfully ignored the call and sent him to voicemail.

"Cameron!" he called. She had almost reached the end of the hallway and was about to turn towards freedom when his voice stopped her in her tracks. He watched her pause and take a deep breath before turning around. Even at the other end of the hallway he could see her face was flushed with embarrassment, and he suspected it had taken every ounce of her confidence to come to his door just as it had taken all he had to dial her number. Spent and confused, they stared at each other down the hallway.

"I … I didn't think you were home," Cameron stammered. "I thought I would … leave a note or something."

Chase hurried down the hallway to meet her, afraid she might dash outside without warning. He panted as he reached her, so nervous he was close to reaching hyperventilation. He struggled to catch his breath before speaking, irrationally concerned it would appear to her that he was out of shape and hardly worth her time.

"I didn't mean to come here," she continued. "I couldn't sit at home and I just sort of … ended up here."

She was babbling, trying to fill the silence with noise so neither she nor he would have the time to stop and think. In romance movies the only sure way to stop someone stuck in the babbling streak was to catch them completely off-guard with a kiss, but Chase had the feeling that would do nothing to solve his problem.

"It's okay," he said, simply. "I didn't think you would answer your phone. I thought I would leave you a voicemail. I guess we're both trying to avoid each other without avoiding each other."

Cameron smiled weakly, and Chase's heart slowed its frenetic pace. So she wasn't angry.

"I don't …" he started, unsure of what words would follow, "I don't want to be uncomfortable about this. I didn't mean to make things get complicated, I just wanted to … the time was right, and I …"

Cameron smiled again, broader this time, and Chase let his sentence trail off with a sigh.

"I don't have anything to say," he admitted. "I'm an ass. We were in a situation, and I just took advantage of it."

"It's okay," Cameron said, the gentle tone of her voice letting him know that maybe it really was. "You don't have to explain anything."

A door behind them closed, and Cameron moved aside as Chase's neighbor stepped past them, nodding his hello towards Chase. Chase looked back towards his open apartment door, wondering what harm there might be in asking Cameron to come in for a while, and what she might think that meant.

"I should go," Cameron said, cutting his thoughts off before they could fester. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Right," Chase nodded. Cameron turned and headed for the street.

This wasn't right; he shouldn't feel like this. He'd done what he wanted to do and she didn't hate him for it, but something about this just didn't feel the way it was supposed to. He stood in the hallway, watching her go, and as she disappeared he knew that he had resolved nothing, for either one of them. There was hesitation in her step and he couldn't bring himself to turn back towards his apartment. It couldn't end this way. There was more to be said, and he couldn't wait for resolution again.

Cameron was halfway to her car, hurrying across the street in the shimmering twilight of the evening, when the door to the apartment building flung open and the soft footsteps pounded after her.

"Cameron, wait!"

She stopped in the middle of the street and turned, crossing her arms over her chest as she did in her classic stance of self-protection. She had hoped she was free, able to put it all behind her.

"Chase, you don't have to say anything," she said before he even reached her. "Stop trying to make amends for something that doesn't have to be fixed. I just came here because I wanted to make sure we were okay and things weren't going to be strange between us, nothing else. I don't need anything from you."

"I haven't stopped thinking about you for months," he confessed, the statement falling from his mouth before he had a chance to think. "Not since … well, I'm sure you know since when. And I hate it. I hate that I can't look at you without thinking about pinning you to a wall and kissing you the same way you kissed me. So I took the opportunity to exorcise myself. Only I don't think it worked, because I just chased you into the street and I don't usually chase women I don't feel anything for."

"I'm sorry," Cameron said quietly. "I made a mistake a long time ago, but it's time for both of us to let it go. It's not me you've been thinking of, it's the situation. And it's not one that is going to happen again."

"What do you mean, 'both of us'?" Chase asked, latching on to the phrase and ignoring all else.

"What?" Cameron had not expected for him to respond, and had hoped to be able to walk away with the upper hand.

"You said it's time for both of us to let it go," Chase said. "What does that mean?"

"It means nothing," Cameron replied, "it's just a figure of speech."

"No," Chase retorted, stepping towards her. "You never misspeak. You're not capable of it. Everything you say is carefully plotted and planned to get the result you want."

"No it isn't."

"Yes, it is," Chase maintained. "You don't realize it, but it is. You have never once said something you didn't believe to be absolutely true, or done anything you didn't believe in, for that matter, so what do you mean, 'both of us'?"

Silence fell on the neighborhood as the sun slipped lower on the horizon. Cameron's hair shone auburn in the near-dark, and in the distance a dog barked but the neighborhood was otherwise silent. Chase listened for the sound of approaching cars as he waited for Cameron's reply, certain something would come along to interrupt their conversation and save Cameron from what Chase suspected was a painful revelation.

"My life cannot be based on one bad decision," she finally said. "I was always afraid of everything, afraid of the way people saw me and afraid of what I would have to do to get people to see me the way I want. I've always done everything I can to get the outcome I want. Only apparently that's not the way things go. I can plan and prepare and work, but you can't always get what you want."

House's influence, Chase noted, had reached her subconscious. All she was saying was true, but Chase knew she had changed in the years since she had come to work at Princeton-Plainsboro. She had found her true voice at Princeton-Plainsboro, and though she still did all she could to accomplish what she felt was right, she no longer did it with anyone else's approval in mind.

"It's not fair," Cameron continued, "that drugs got me what I wanted faster than anything else, and that because I was incapable of hiding my own insecurities, I can't have it anymore."

There it was, she had confessed. In a way.

"If I hadn't been high," she finished, "we never would have slept together, you would never have kissed me today, and we could have both gone on with uncomplicated lives."

Cameron's arms dropped to her sides. Chase wondered how long she had been holding that in. So she was still angry. Not at him, not exactly, but at herself. She had convinced herself just as he had that all she felt about him was based on one night, and had refused to allow herself to believe otherwise. His heart went out to her. Chase had spent months fantasizing about her, and Cameron, it seemed, had spent months berating herself for the same actions.

"You," Chase said slowly, "are so full of it."

She stared at him in shock. "Excuse me?"

"You don't want an uncomplicated life," he told her, placing his hands on his hips. Her face hardened as she set her jaw, preparing to refute any argument he could send her way.

"I'm sorry?" she haughtily asked.

"You do not want an uncomplicated life," Chase repeated. "Not even close."

"Do not tell me for one minute what I want, Chase," she warned.

"If you wanted simplicity you wouldn't have gone to medical school, wouldn't have become a doctor, and certainly wouldn't work for House," Chase listed with a chuckle. "You wouldn't play that little banter the two of you play, and you would never have told him you liked him. You wouldn't have married …" At the flash of pain in her eyes, he hesitated, then softened. "You wouldn't have done the things you've done, the things which make you, you. I know you see yourself as some sort of straight-laced girl who always followed the rules and missed out on a whole lot of fun stuff growing up, and maybe you were that way once, but you're not anymore. And you may not want your life to be defined by the stupid mistakes you make, Cameron, but it's those stupid little mistakes which make you alive. I made a stupid mistake that night too, and I may have done something stupid and out of place today, but you know what? I'm not going to look at it as a mistake because if nothing else it's lead us to this conversation right now, so I can tell you how amazing you are and how little credit you give yourself, and if you can't understand that Cameron then I'm sorry, but I won't regret it. Because you're complicated, and you're beautiful and I -- I like you that way."

Cameron stared at him, unblinking. She stood a little straighter, readjusting her posture and setting her jaw hard. Chase knew the stance. She was trying to appear intimidating, and as if nothing could touch her. For a moment, he considering retreating and allowing her to exist in her hardness just like she wanted him to believe she would be happiest.

Instead, he met her stance for stance and eye for eye in a stare down, challenging her to push him away. If she thought he had ignored key phrases in her confession, she was wrong. He had only begun to chip away at her hard shell, and had come too far to abandon the cause now.

"Did you want me before you took the drugs?" he asked softly, evenly.

Her jaw dropped a little, in spite of herself.

"What?" she asked.

"You said that drugs got you what you wanted," Chase repeated her words slowly, remembering every single word with delicacy. "Was it me?"

Cameron was silent before him, and as he watched her he could see the struggle behind her eyes. She was deciding what she wanted him to believe. If she confessed to him that she had wanted him, she would no longer be able to sit in ignorance as they worked side by side and would be forced to abandon her fantasies of simplicity and naïveté. If she lied, she would be denying herself the very thing she wanted. He already knew the answer to his question; had known if before he asked.

Chase reached his hand out and gently took Cameron's fingers in his. He lifted her fingertips to his face and kissed them, intertwining his fingers with hers as he lowered her hand again.

He took a short, shuffling step towards Cameron, closing the gap between them.

"It would have happened," Chase told her, referring to the night long ago which had started the cycle of torture and release, culminating on a quiet street in front of Chase's apartment building with just the two of them staring helplessly at each other. "I'm only sorry it took this long."

Cameron lifted her eyes to Chase's and pulled her hand away from his. Chase's breath stilted for a moment, afraid she would withdraw again. At her broad, gleaming smile he relaxed, and as she wrapped her arms around Chase's neck and pressed her lips to his he began to smile in spite of himself. He tucked his arms around her, holding her close as her sweet smell tingled in his nostrils and the taste of her melted on his lips. The kiss was soft this time, tender as the others had been passionate and hard, but in the middle of the darkening street he felt the same heat rising inside of him as he had felt pressed against the wall of her apartment or trapped within the dark walls of the closet. This kiss, in its innocence, was sweeter and simpler than any he had fantasized about, and he wanted her all the more because of it. His smile widened to a grin, and she broke the kiss and stepped back.

"I can't kiss you when you're smiling," she admonished, her own grin betraying her.

"Promise me the next time you want something from me, you'll just come out and say it," Chase requested. "Subtlety is not your strong suit."

Cameron laughed. "Okay. I promise."

Chase kissed her again, relishing the fact that this time he could hold her close of his own accord, and not because the resistance of a wall was crushing her against him.

"You still owe me a drink from that night, you know," Cameron reminded him, pulling away. "We never did get out of the apartment."

"You're right," Chase said, looking back towards his apartment building and pondering his still-open apartment door. "There's a bar not to far from here, we could --"

"I want to go upstairs," Cameron cut him off with finality. He stared at her, wide-eyed at her sudden certainty.

"Right," he said, "no more subtlety."

"Exactly," she shone a self-satisfied grin as he turned, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her towards him as they headed across the street and back toward his apartment building. Just as they reached the curb a car tore down the street, and Chase silently gave thanks that, for once, they had managed to have an uninterrupted moment of honesty.

"Things are going to be complicated tomorrow," Cameron said as he released her shoulders to open the apartment building door. He ushered her inside, pulling the door shut behind him. "Are you ready for that?"

"I'm ready," Chase promised, relieved to finally be free from his fantasies, no longer trapped against the wall. "Bring it on."

----------------

The End


End file.
